The military ignored steps before the invasion of Iraq that could have prevented the staggering number of casualties from roadside bombs, the Pentagon's acting inspector general charged Tuesday.

The IG's report says that the military knew years before the war that mines and homemade bombs, which the military calls "improvised explosive devices," would be a "threat . . . in low-intensity conflicts" and that "mine-resistant vehicles" were available.

The report released today on the probe, titled "Deception and Distrust" and led by Reps. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, found Martin suppressed information and manipulated data to serve his agenda.

Martin has been criticized by FCC staff members for pushing his proposals to loosen media ownership rules and requirements for a la carte pricing of cable television through such tactics as suppressing agency studies that do not support his agenda.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, often described as the mastermind of 9/11, and four other prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay told a military judge on Monday that they wish to plead guilty to all charges.

Law professor Jonathan Turley sees this confession as a "strange alliance" between Mohammed and George W. Bush, where both men get what they want -- martyrdom in Mohammed's case and vindication in Bush's -- and President-elect Barack Obama is stuck in the middle with a dilemma on his hands.

Many conservatives are up in arms regarding the charge that President-elect Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States and is, therefore, not qualified under the U.S. Constitution to be President of the United States.

Many conservatives seem to be obsessed with this controversy, calling it a "constitutional crisis." The fact is, however, we have been in a "constitutional crisis" for years! The problem is, most conservatives only get worked up over a potential abridgement of constitutional government when it serves their partisan political purposes. In other words, when a Democrat appears guilty of constitutional conflict, conservatives "go ballistic," but when Republicans are equally culpable of constitutional conflict, they yawn with utter indifference.

If flu shots are so good for you, then why do sixty percent of doctors and nurses refuse to get them? ABC News is reporting that only forty percent of health care professionals opted to be vaccinated against the flu last year.

It's yet another case of health professionals telling patients to do one thing while they do something entirely different themselves. For example, according to surveys published earlier this year, most oncologists would never undergo chemotherapy.

Many doctors take vitamins and nutritional supplements, but they won't tell their patients to do the same because state medical boards have made it illegal for doctors to recommend nutritional therapies.

Thus, much of what medical professionals tell patients stands in contradiction to what they actually believe is best for their health.

Major pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline has been accused of pressuring poor Third World parents into enrolling their children in experimental drug trials that have led to the deaths of at least 12 infants.

"In most cases these are underprivileged individuals, many of them unable to read or write, who are pressured into including their children," said Juan Carlos Palomares of Fesprosa.

"This occurs without any type of state control [and] does not comply with minimum ethical requirements," the federation said.

At least 12 Argentinean babies enrolled in the study have died in the past year.

Steinemann put six different fragranced products - dryer sheets, a fabric softener, a laundry detergent, and three different air fresheners (one solid, one spray and one oil) - into an isolated, room-temperature enclosure and used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to identify any volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that they emitted. She found that together, the products emitted almost 100 different VOCs, every one at levels higher than 300 micrograms per cubic meter.

Here's an excerpt from the complaint: "During the call, ROD BLAGOJEVICH's wife can be heard in the background telling ROD BLAGOJEVICH to tell Deputy Governor A 'to hold up that fucking Cubs shit. . . fuck them.' ROD BLAGOJEVICH asked Deputy Governor A what he thinks of his wife's idea. Deputy Governor A stated that there is a part of what ROD BLAGOJEVICH's wife said that he 'agree[s] with.'

The tactic has been common in the U.S. war on terror, with forces systematically using loud music on hundreds of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, then the U.S. military commander in Iraq, authorized it on Sept. 14, 2003, "to create fear, disorient ... and prolong capture shock."

Now the detainees aren't the only ones complaining. Musicians are banding together to demand the U.S. military stop using their songs as weapons.

A campaign being launched Wednesday has brought together groups including Massive Attack and musicians such as Tom Morello, who played with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave and is now on a solo tour. It will feature minutes of silence during concerts and festivals, said Chloe Davies of the British law group Reprieve, which represents dozens of Guantanamo Bay detainees and is organizing the campaign.